


My Heart Beats With a Ceaseless Longing

by bhcp



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellarke, Best Friends, Drunk Clarke, F/M, Friends to Lovers, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I'm Bad At Tagging, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Meddling, Oblivious, Shipping, drunk clarke has no chill, drunk clarke likes bellamy's hair, group goals, so much love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:22:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bhcp/pseuds/bhcp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When trying to prove to Monty that his crush likes him, Clarke also finds she isn't as alone as she may have thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Heart Beats With a Ceaseless Longing

“I have a plan” Clarke exclaimed after some time of contemplative silence. “We just do a love quiz. If you do it by yourself then it isn’t accurate, you can’t appraise the situation from an unbiased stance, but we can. And then you’ll know if he likes you back”.

For months they had watched Monty and Miller dance circles and flirt around each other, and all they wanted was for them to become official, but Monty was riddled with insecurities, and his friends had decided this would be the night to sort out a game plan with Monty and his crush. Their group was quite large (with Clarke, Wells, Octavia, Lincoln, Raven, Monty, Miller, Jasper, Maya, Murphy and Bellamy being the core), yet for obvious reasons Murphy (because he’s a dick), Bellamy (because Monty doesn’t want to suffer the embarrassment of talking to his crush’s best friend about how his crush doesn’t like him) and Miller (because he’s the crush) were not present at the brainstorm.

The reactions to this were varied, whilst Jasper got excited and exclaimed that “Minty” (he was the ship-name coordinator of the group and he loved his role) would get 100%, Raven snorted and said it was dumb, but there was general consensus that they didn’t have a better way of convincing Monty, and that it might give him the boost he needed so he agreed. She was glad Bellamy wasn’t here, he would with no doubt endlessly tease her for this plan. (She was lying, she wished he was here, teasing and all. Maybe extra teasing. She liked teasing. Ok she loved Bellamy’s teasing but her best friend understood her in a way the others in her gang couldn’t.)

**“Ok first question: Do they say your name when addressing you, or frequently use it?”**

Jasper got excited and answered that for him, going into a long rambling story about how adorable it was when Miller addressed Monty because he called him ‘Mont’. Lesser girls would be worn out with their boyfriend’s eternal excitement for other couples, but it seemed to rejuvenate Maya, and she reasoned that he was extremely romantic. Clarke was so glad that they’d found each other, and she observed as they held hands, or Jasper would whisper in her ear. She’d blush and curl her face up into Jasper’s chest. Other times she’d watch as Jasper would make her laugh so hard her drink would come out of her nose and she would struggle to breathe for a while. Her favourite times were when Maya would drink Jasper under the table (a surprisingly hard feat) and she would steady him whilst he composed sonnets about her being the highest hanging fruit. Jasper’s sonnets were of legendary status among her friends, Bellamy would always film them, and sometimes even do a remix (yes he was willing to humiliate his friend that much that he would spend time and money remixing a drunken love sonnet. Sometimes Clarke would work on it with Bellamy, and give him suggestions on the graphics. They fully intended to start their own Jasper’s Sonnets Meme collection©, but were just working on finding the perfect one to kick-start their campaign. Whilst Clarke was lost in her musings Jasper was still recounting “the top 10 most adorable times that Nathan Miller called Monty Green ‘Mont’ saga” and he ended his speech with a high pitched squeal that could only be labelled as “fangirling”. Whilst longwinded it led to an unquestionable answer of:

**1\. YES**

*enter Monty’s blush and adamant refusals of this, trying to justify it “It’s just a jokey thing. And it isn’t THAT often. Everyone ignores it. *

**“Are there subtle touching and signs of affection?”**

This time Lincoln supplied the answer. “There is definite touching, but it’s reserved and respectful. Yet it’s definitely flirtatious. Sometimes he brushes against you, which could be taken as accidental, but when he brushes your hair back quickly, or puts his arm over your shoulders, it isn’t accidental and it is flirtatious. It’s also very affectionate.” Lincoln was calm with his answer, yet the warmth of his words, and his reassuring smile showed his excitement for the “ship”. He looked over to Octavia instinctively and she kissed his cheek in approval. Their comfort in each other was so deep it almost hurt to watch, it made Clarke feel a bit hollow. She wanted a presence, and comfort that they had. She probably just needed to watch a sad movie, eat ice cream and get her ugly cry on to purge her raging hormones. Recently, that had been her answer to everything. Long days at the hospital, plus family issues, and minimal time to spend with friends led to lots of ugly crying and binging. Which led to weight gain and further ugly crying and binging. It was a relentless cycle. Bellamy had noticed her sadness the other night. Whilst they don’t live together, they may as well since they are constantly at each other’s apartments. After talking through her problems with Bellamy he told her that she didn’t need to worry about her weight as well and got her an extra-large serving of ice cream. He then proceeded to put on any ugly cry film or programme she suggested, and let her curl up against his side. Although she would have done that even if his arm hadn’t automatically lifted leaving a tiny perfect space for her body to fit into. Whilst they watched and she ate he fiddled with her hair, braiding and un-braiding soothingly until she fell asleep. It was calming and exactly what she needed. But she focused on Monty, deciding her problems could wait, and as marked down the obvious response of:

**2\. YES**

*Monty’s continued blush as well as his attempts of denial including that it was normal friend behaviour*

**“Do you text often?”**

Raven snorted and made a snarky reply based on the fact that since they’d started texting, Monty had to change his contract to allow for unlimited texts. He used to be a slow replier, not concentrating on his phone to instead focus on his programmes or research, but recently he was stuck to his phone like a magnet. It was cute.

  1. **YES**



*Blush accompanied by weak protest “it was for you guys as well”.

**“Do they tease you?”**

Octavia beamed as she told the group a story. “Me and Monty went for lunch, and we decided to have a mid-day drink so we stopped in at the bar. Miller was working and he came over all smiles, obviously all directed to Monty, he asked us what we’d been up to, and when Monty told him that he’d just failed an experiment, and it had blown up he asked him if that’s why his hair was so messy. Monty was all embarrassed and tried to sort it, but Miller said he thought it looked cute. MONtY AlwAYs weARs it LIkE thAt noW.” Clarke remembered that day because she’d missed them by a few minutes. But she wasn’t ready to go out anyway, she’d just finished her long shift, and was still in her scrubs. She showered at Bellamy’s like she regularly did (it was the whole group’s headquarters since he was the ultimate mother-hen) and whilst she could find her designated toothbrush she kept there, she couldn’t find her regular clothes. She realised that she had worn them last time and forgotten to replace them. All she could find of hers was a skirt. She took one of Bellamy’s shirts that resembled a dress on her. When Bellamy saw her, he took the piss at her height and (just her general tiny-ness) but then continued to say that it was a nice look. She started to wear skirts more after that. And his shirt. But not because of him, just because they looked cute, and it was comfy. Nothing else. Clarke snapped back to reality as everyone was swooning at the story.

  1. **YES**



*Blush and silence*

**“Do they talk about the deep stuff with you”**

Monty began to start saying he felt like he knew nothing about Nate, which points to a no before Wells joined in. He argued that Bellamy told him he was jealous of the bond Miller and Monty shared. “He said that it was strange because he was used to being the most important person Miller had, basically brothers, and it took him years to understand him. Bellamy was shocked at how quickly you knew stuff about him. He even remarked that it took him a couple of years to figure out his favourite colour of green.”

“But green isn’t his favourite colour. He likes it, he likes it a lot. But grey is his favourite colour. He says there is beauty in the indiscriminate. It’s not a full colour, just a shade, but he says it’s the most powerful. And he says there are negative connotations for the colour grey, but that’s just because people look at the bad shades. They don’t focus on the pretty ones, only the bad ones.”

Everyone watched in silence for a while and Monty stared into his glass looking shocked that he’d actually contributed that much information, that he knew that much information. “It’s not exactly the deep stuff though is it?” he questioned.  

“Colour is important; it tells you a lot about a person. But even if it isn’t profoundly deep, I bet you do know the deep things, and not just through observation, but because he has intrusted you with it.” Maya summarised and smiled at the boy. Her words whilst not that extraordinary seemed to reassure Monty.

“I have to do it now before I lose this sudden burst of confidence. God I can feel it dissolving already. Wish me luck.” He practically jittered across the bar and out of the door, no doubt towards Miller’s apartment. Clarke hoped that he would make it before he completely lost his nerve. It warmed her heart that the smallest fact of knowing his favourite colour would encourage Monty to chase after the boy of his dreams. It gave her hope.

  1. **YES**



She was so used to be single, she hadn’t had a serious relationship for years since Lexa but recently she felt increasingly distant from her friends, from her people. Octavia and Lincoln were the “serious” couple, the couple that gave you goose bumps with their intensity. You could sense the perfection of their match from miles away. There was no doubt in Clarke’s mind that they would last. Jasper and Maya were the “sweet” ones, when Jasper had managed to somehow convince Maya to date him despite his crazy antics the group was shocked, but the way they looked at each other showed their ease and happiness with each other.

Those were the “official couples”, but Monty and Miller had obviously been dancing round each other. Raven was enjoying being single, after the “Finn-cident” she’d dated a bit, but she wanted time to heal and just relish in her singledom before trying to love again. Wells was in a similar situation, being the “good guy” meant he often stepped back selflessly to try and help those he loved, so he never got what, he wanted. He was working on it, and by the looks he gave Raven he was trying to build up to asking her out whilst maintaining her need for space. It would take time, but Clarke could see a happy ending for the couple, Raven just needed to finish mending her wounds before making herself susceptible to new ones. Even Murphy was walking the treacherous path to starting a relationship. Her either wasn’t with the group, or bought Emori, the only girl he’s ever taken seriously with him. The whole group approved of their relationship, anyone who can match Murphy and make the group laugh while doing it deserves to be welcomed into their ranks in their eyes, but he wasn’t quite ready, he didn’t want to rush it.

As Clarke was thinking it through, she realised everyone is moving towards a couple, or are already happy in their couples. She felt so detached form the group, realising she didn’t have the person that is hers, that she could just stake a claim on. She had Bellamy, but that was different. They were besties, through the bad times and the good. They were the parents of the group. Whilst Wells was her longest best friend, he was actually more like a brother, and Octavia and Raven were her people who saved her from isolating herself from the world through all the problems she had faced. But Bellamy, he was her sanctuary, her safe place. She had clothes, and toiletries, and even food at his place. They shared a Netflix account. His suggestions overran hers, so when she just wants to watch a terrible movie with plot holes and bad acting, she has to scroll through rows and rows of documentaries and historical movies. She doesn’t mind it one bit.

Whilst she was contemplating the highs and lows of being without a relationship, her friends had started speaking. She didn’t realise, too caught up in the memories of being swaddled into a blanket burrito with a tub of ice cream and her feet in Bellamy’s lap, watching “Gladiator” and listening to Bellamy listing historical inaccuracies (“German Shepherds weren’t even a breed back then”). It wasn’t until Octavia nudged her that she realised the whole group was staring at her.

“Before you made this about Monty and Miller” “Minty” “I’m not calling it Minty Jasper” “Come on guys Minty is the perfect ship name”

“Before you made this about ‘Minty’” Octavia winced at the ship name after restarting her sentence to please Jasper, “we were planning on talking to you about ‘ _Bellarke’”_ Octavia emphasised the last word to the delighted squeals of Jasper.

“What’s Bellarke?” Clarke asked extremely confused, but she could sense that she was going to be embarrassed quite soon. She was correct.

“You and Bellamy dumbass, it’s your “ship-name” courtesy of Jasper. But anyway general gist is that you’re a couple. You’re in a relationship and you don’t even know it. You don’t accept it. You’re basically married off except you refuse to admit it to yourself, and you have no benefits. You argue so much because of the heaps of sexual tension you have, but it’s only bickering because you don’t want to hurt each other because you love each other. It’s obvious.” Raven summarises with only mild amounts of snarky tones and rolling eyes. Clarke would be proud if she wasn’t in shock.

“Bellamy and I are just friends. We’re not like that. I spend lots of time with him because he’s one of my best friends, but we’re not a couple.” Clarke responds, only half in shock. Her other half is processing what her friends have said, but it’s registering as true. Clarke pushes the thoughts down with a couple of large swigs of beer. “Who wants some vodka. Let’s have some vodka.”

As she practically jumps over her table and runs away from the booth, she can hear the concerned murmurs of her friends. She bet she had about 4 seconds before the table elected who should come speak to her, so she got the bartenders attention, and ordered the “big-shot special”, which was 5 shots of crappy vodka for everyone at your table. It was expensive, but she reckoned her only chance of escaping and surviving this night was to get trashed and take her whole group with her. This was a clear way of doing it.

“Hey” Wells started. She could hear his worry, and knew the face he’d be pulling if she turned to face him. “It’s ok to be a bit nervous about this. Everyone knows you’re completely oblivious to your feelings, that’s why we wanted to talk to you about it. The thing is Bellamy really likes you, it’s obvious, and we can tell you like him too, but if you don’t face your feelings it’s just wasting the time you could be spending together, just come sit down and talk with us about it. We’ll help. Were your friends.

She made her way to the table just seconds before the big shot special arrived. Her friends groaned. But divvied up the shots, lining them up in front of themselves, reluctantly accepting their fate in exchange for their friend’s happiness. Maya told the group that she could already feel the hangover from tomorrow.

“I know it’s scary, but why don’t you take your own advice. We’ll redo the love quiz. Be objective. We’ll prove it to you, just the way you proved it to Mont ok?” Octavia soothed.

“NEW RULE EVERYONE WHO AGREES TO THE QUESTION DOES A SHOT” Raven yells. She could drink anyone under the table, so she does it regularly to embarrass them all. Even Lincoln. It’s amusing.

**“Do they say your name when addressing you, or frequently use it?”**

***6 people take shots***

“Clarke come on you can’t deny that one!” Wells starts.

“He doesn’t ever call me Clarke”

“No he calls you Princess which is even nicer. It’s his special way of addressing you. It’s like he’s completely rewired his brain to call you Princess officially. And he calls you Princess every time he talks to you” Lincoln supplies.

**Clarke doesn’t speak but does the shot.**

**“Are there subtle touching and signs of affection?”**

There is a pause before Raven snorts and makes a joke about if Bellamy’s touching is subtle, then being unsubtle is definitely not PG.

The group start laughing and instead of taking the shot laugh about the different times Bellamy has picked Clarke up, or pulled her across his chest so she could sleep on him, or braided her hair etc. There were lots of stories and Clarke felt her face going red. Just to stop them from embarrassing her further, she shouts “OK. SHOT”

***7 people take shots***

**“Do you text often?”**

***7 people take shots***

Jasper starts laughing about the time the group went to watch a movie, but Bellamy had to work. Clarke had been excited to watch it for weeks, but just kicked out of the theatre because she had been texting Bellamy the whole time.

“I hate you guys”.

**“Do they tease you?”**

* **7 people take shots***

And so it goes on, with more embarrassing stories. She hears about how Bellamy constantly teases her for her height, how he teases her about her pout, how he teases her about her love for terrible films, how he teases her for crying at said films, but also how he teases her as he is hugging and soothing her after watching these terrible films.

Everyone knows that he talks about the deep stuff with Clarke, and apart from Octavia she is the only person he trusts 100%. He didn’t even tell Miller some of the stuff he told Clarke. About a month after Clarke realised Bellamy was her best friend he broke down and told her that his mum used to have to sell her body to keep the roofs over their heads. He said that Octavia never knew, and she never would know, but he told her how scary it was for him, and how sad it made him. He felt responsible despite being a child, and feeling that helpless tore him up inside. After that there wasn’t anything Bellamy didn’t tell Clarke.

All the shots were gone and her friends were looking up at Clarke with expectant eyes. At least she thought they were. Expectance seemed a bit blurry.

“You can’t be this oblivious Clarke. If you didn’t know before, surely you have realised now that Bellamy loves you. The only reason you’d be denying it is if you didn’t love him back. That isn’t true. Just let your walls come down for him Clarke. You’d be so much happier if you did.” Octavia held her hand whilst she was speaking, and looked around the group for consensus, and they all nodded. She felt alone once more, not understanding her feelings.

Raven left a short time later to meet a “friend”, although she gave Wells a small sad look before going. Progress. That meant Clarke, being the mother of the group packed everyone away into cabs after promising to consider it. She went back into the bar and ordered some water. She was drunk. She was so very drunk.

She googled: “how to know if you’re in love with your best friend”, or some variation of that, with ~~one or two~~ many typos that google corrected.

**“you tell everyone that you’re ‘just friends’ constantly, even if they don’t imply you’re not”, “you trust them more than anyone”, “you talk about anything with them”, “you’re comfortably yourself around them”, “you notice everything about them”, “they’re your personal pillow”, “you bicker a lot, but it’s never serious”, “you know you’re in love with them but you’re scared*.**

Well shit.

*******

Clarke wakes up, but keeps her eyes clothes. She is hungover. She is confused. This isn’t her bed. She relaxes when she sniffs, and smells the scent of Bellamy. She realises that this is of course his bed, his sheet, his room, and his shirt that she is wearing. She opens her eyes, and sees water and drugs next to her. Also some orange juice. He knows her needs.

She rolls over, expecting to find him there, but the bed is empty, and it’s clear she was the only one to sleep in it last night.

She stretches, gets up and walks to the kitchen, where she finds him making breakfast.

“Hey drunkard nice of you to wake up” he teases her.

She asks him what happened last night and explains that Octavia’s text to him didn’t make much sense, but he could decipher that she meant Clarke was at the bar, drunk. So he drove, saw her passed out with half a glass of water and picked her up (literally), and bought her back home, whilst she woke up in the car, and made futile attempts and conversation, but stroked his hair a lot.

Clarke tried to ignore that last part, worried of what she might have let slip.

“So how come you didn’t put me on the sofa. Or stayed in the same bed. We’ve shared before”

Bellamy reasoned that she might need some space, and that he wanted a decent night sleep if she was thrashing, but she knew he was just being a good guy, and was worried about taking advantage or making her feel uncomfortable if she didn’t remember getting into the same bed as him. She thought she could detect something else. He wasn’t looking at her, and his teasing smile didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Bellamy what’s wrong?” she questioned him, but he denied anything being out of the ordinary.

“Are you annoyed at me?” she suggested and he immediately shot her down convincingly, as well as her next three suggestions as to could be what was making him act so strangely.

She gulped and took the leap.

“Did I say something to … offend you last night. Or make you feel uncomfortable or something? We’re never weird around each other Bell. What is it?” He froze with this suggestion.

“You eh. You were. I know you were drunk, and you probably don’t remember. And you don’t mean it. You didn’t mean it. Well not all of it. Some of it. I am your best friend, I know that, but eh, you said that you loved me. I knew that so I responded, I mean we’re like family. But then you grabbed my chin, and turned it towards you, which was a bit dangerous because I was driving, but then you said you didn’t just love me you were ‘IN- love with me’ and I nearly crashed the car but then I realised you were just drunk so don’t worry about it. Oh and then you kissed me cheek and passed out so I had to drive while you collapsed on me and carry you upstairs which isn’t difficult because you’re so small. And then you woke up and demanded to be changed like the princess you are. None of your clothes are here so I guess you’re keeping another of my shirts.”

He started his story muttering and stumbling over words, but by the end he was joking. Except he was still really awkward. He was scratching his neck and pushing his glasses up his nose. He couldn’t stay still. He was blushing throughout the story and couldn’t meet her eyes.

She didn’t know how she could have been so oblivious to her feelings. Since her hungover eyes laid sight on him she felt calmer, relaxed. Even during the embarrassment of a drunken love confession, she had still managed to find peace within him.

Hopefully she could have faith in the quiz like Monty did.

“So you changed me?” she started awkwardly. He blushed before assuring her that he just handed her clothes, but only helped when she got tangled. And she was still wearing her bra, she just took it off doing the bra trick once his shirt was on.

“I trust you to change me Bell. I trust you with anything. And it isn’t because you’re my best friend, or because I was drunk, it’s because I’m in love with you, I just didn’t realise until this stupid quiz showed me, and now I feel like an idiot because it was obvious.”

“Remind me to write them a letter of thanks” he quipped before reaching for her and kissing her so tenderly that it relaxed her soul. He tasted like home. “I love you Clarke.”

***

After a few hours, and many more declarations of love for the both of them (they loved hearing it), and acts of love, they decided to text their friends and let them know. When Clarke told Bellamy that Jasper had created a ship name of “Bellarke” for them, he informed Clarke that he’d seen a group chat on Octavia’s phone entitled: “Bellarke forever” but didn’t know what it meant.

Their friends were losers, but she couldn’t stay too mad at them considering they bought them together.

“So when did you know you loved me?” Clarke questioned after revealing the whole story to Bellamy.

“I had a crush on you since the first time we met and we’d bickered despite having the same opinion. But I didn’t realise I was in love with you until two years ago, when you had just broken up with Lexa. Seeing you hurt made me hurt, and despite the fact you were single now, and I had convinced myself that if you were ever single again I would ask you out I left it. You needed time. So I just became content with being your best friend, and I thought it would be like this forever. I’m glad it isn’t.”

Clarke just snuggled in and once again murmured the three words she has needed to say without knowing for years. She got many excited texts from her friends, but the only one she opened from Monty said: “Minty is also now a thing. I guess the quiz knows what it’s talking about.”

She smiled, and turned on a history documentary, safe in the knowledge that her brain had finally caught up to her soul.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Nick Mulvey's Cucurucu. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed. Sorry that it hasn't been beta'd or thoroughly checked but feedback would be great.  
> I'm not recommending doing online quizzes to check for love my friend just gave me the idea.
> 
> This was probably terrible and I just uploaded it in a tired haze, but if you got to here well done. I applaud you.


End file.
